The Maison Dieu, a late C15 to early C16 building incorporating part of a medieval hospital

Summary

The late-C15 to early-C16 building incorporates part of the upstanding remains of Maison Dieu, the C13 hospital of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Reasons for Designation

The Maison Dieu, 17 Ospringe Street, Faversham is scheduled for the following principal reasons:

* Survival: the building incorporates upstanding remains of the C13 medieval hospital. It also demonstrates a good level of survival as a late-C15 to early-C16 house;

* Documentation: the Maison Dieu formed an integral part of the former hospital complex, which is well-documented, both from archaeological and historical sources;

* Rarity: few medieval hospitals retain upstanding remains and very few have been subject to excavation;

* Group Value: with the Grade II* listed 15 Ospringe Street, which incorporates further remains of the medieval hospital.

History

17 Ospringe Street, Faversham includes building fabric which formed part of The Maison Dieu, a hospital founded in the C13. Medieval hospitals were groups of buildings, established largely between the Anglo-Saxon period and the C16, designed to provide spiritual and medical care. Some, like this example, enjoyed royal patronage. Documentary sources indicate that by the mid-C16 there were around 800 hospitals in England. A further 300 are also thought to have existed but had fallen out of use by this date.

The Maison Dieu of Ospringe is claimed to have been founded by Henry III in 1234; however, it is more likely that it was founded by Hubert de Burgh in around 1230, and that it was one of the properties handed over to the king when de Burgh fell from grace in 1234. The hospital's dominant purpose was to care for the sick and aged; a second purpose was the shelter of pilgrims on their way to and from Canterbury to visit the shrine of St Thomas Beckett. Two thirds of all the hospitals in Kent are located along Watling Street. The hospital was staffed by a small number of regular clerics along with the Brethren of the Holy Cross. The total included a master or warden, three professed brethren, two secular chantry priests who prayed for the souls of the founder and benefactors of the hospital, and various ‘sisters’ who filled the role of nurses, rather than being almswomen. Henry III added another function to the hospital by having a royal chamber built (the Camera Regis), so that he and his entourage could stay there whenever they travelled to or from the coast. It appears that Henry made little use of this facility, unlike his son Edward I, who used it often, a factor which may have placed an added strain on the finances of the institution. A chapel was established at the Maison Dieu soon after 1235, when an agreement was made with the abbot of St Augustine's Abbey at Canterbury. Following this, in 1245, the brethren were also granted the right of burial within the hospital precincts. For the first 20 years after its foundation, endowments and gifts came quickly and the hospital flourished, but during the reign of Edward I it stagnated and became perpetually insolvent. The Maison Dieu struggled on until 1516 when the Bishop of Rochester obtained its dissolution, and added its revenues to those of St John's College, Cambridge. The Maison Dieu thus ceased to function as a hospital, although the obligation to pray for the souls of its founder and benefactor remained, and thus a series of chantry priests was appointed. Of the hospital buildings, all but the chapel and the chaplain's house were leased out to a local businessman. In 1547, under the reformation of Edward VI, the chantry lost its religious status and the remaining buildings were also leased out.

The main complex of buildings relating to the hospital, including the Common Hall, the chapel and the Camera Regis, were located on the north side of Ospringe Street, in an area now redeveloped for private housing. The medieval walls in numbers 15 and 17 Ospringe Street are the only upstanding remains of the Maison Dieu. Subsequently, number 17 has been used as a chaplain’s house, a public house and a shop. It was placed in State care in 1947 and is used to house a museum for the archaeology and history of the Faversham area.

Much of the hospital site was excavated in 1977 prior to development when a partial plan of the precinct was recovered, and many of the hospital buildings were identified. The main buildings were shown to have been erected soon after the hospital's foundation, the ‘infirmaries’ in around 1240 and the chapel in around 1250. The earliest pottery from the site dated from the mid-C13 and there were no signs of earlier buildings. In 1998-1999 twenty samples were removed from oak timbers within number 17, including from the jetty joists on the north and east sides, a door post and various fireplace lintels. They were subject to tree ring analysis in 1990 and in 2020 further analysis through radiocarbon wiggle-matching was undertaken; the study concluded that the timbers sampled had a single felling phase of 1458 to 1473. This late-C15 date differs from the dating of the timber-framed building as C16 based on stylistic and documentary evidence.

Details

PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS: a late-C15 to early-C16 building which incorporates part of the upstanding remains of Maison Dieu, the C13 hospital of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

DESCRIPTION: the house is situated to the south of Faversham on Watling Street, which was the main route between Dover and London, via Canterbury, in the medieval period. The hospital is known from excavation to have been more extensive than the visible remains suggest, covering an area north and south of the road. The other visible part of the Maison Dieu is incorporated into an inhabited building immediately to the east of the monument (number 15 Ospringe Street, listed Grade II*, National Heritage List for England (NHLE) entry 1069430, not included in the scheduling).

The building, number 17, included in the monument is also listed Grade II* (NHLE entry 1069431) and includes C13 walls associated with the medieval hospital, along with examples of late-C15 or C16 architecture and some early C18 alterations. The C13 stonework is thought to be part of an undercroft intended to support a hall or chamber above. The walls have narrow, rectangular windows and a door on to the street, the sill of which is around 0.5m below present ground level. The stonework of the walls is of a rougher rubble than that of the other inhabited portion of the Maison Dieu. The windows have a narrower splay and are made of inferior ragstone. The door arch has long voussoirs and a coarse quarter-round moulding with a chamfered outer order. These features have been taken to suggest a construction date for the building of around 1300 or a little later, when the hospital could no longer afford first-class masonry. The chamber above the medieval remains has long been considered to date from after the early-C16 dissolution of the hospital, and to be of one build, with some later alterations. However, recent dendroecological analysis of oak samples from jetty joists on the north and east sides of the building, a doorpost, and various fireplace lintels concludes that these timbers have a late-C15 felling date. The house consisted of a ground-floor hall, to the west of the old undercroft. Upstairs would have been the parlour, solar and the Great Chamber. The building incorporates surviving evidence for its various uses, as a chaplain's house, a public house and a shop.

EXTENT OF SCHEDULING: Both the upstanding structure of The Maison Dieu, 17 Ospringe Street and the ground beneath the house are included in the scheduling. All modern fittings within the structure are excluded, including the staircase, the fittings for the electricity and heating system, the English Heritage sign on the outside wall of the building, the display cabinets in the museum, modern red brick infilling in the fireplaces and modern brick rebuilding.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

24359

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Other
Howard et al, Tree-Ring Analysis Of Timbers From Maison Dieu, Ospringe, Kent, 1999
Howard et al, The Maison Dieu Museum, 17 Ospringe Street, Faversham, Kent: Radiocarbon Wiggle-Matching of Oak Timbers, 2022
Rigold and Dunning, Maison Dieu, Ospringe Kent Guidebook, 1985

End of official list entry

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